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British colonial officials covered up Mau Mau killings

The previously secret Foreign Office files have been released by the National Archives. Credit: Arj Singh/PA Wire

Attempts by British colonial authorities to cover-up the brutal killings of 11 prisoners during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya have been exposed in previously secret Government documents.

No-one has ever been prosecuted for the deaths even though evidence showed the detainees at Hola detention camp were clubbed to death by prison warders in March 1959 after they refused to work.

Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd was urged to tone down his Commons statement after the killings. Credit: Arj Singh/PA Wire

The Foreign Office files, released by the National Archives, showed British officials attempted to blame their deaths on "drinking too much water" rather than violence, and refused to identify individuals involved.